Charli XCX recruited celebrity video stars using dating app

Charli XCX turned to celebrity dating app Raya to recruit some of the famous male stars for her latest video Boys.

In July (17), singer Charli XCX released video Boys, tapping A-list stars including Joe Jonas, Mark Ronson, Riz Ahmed, British Olympian Tom Daley, and musician Jack Antonoff to act out seductive moves in front of the camera, playing with teddy bears, puppies, and power tools.

Now the singer has revealed that while she is on first-name terms with some of the video stars, she used dating app Raya, which was founded to enable celebrities to ‘swipe right’ with other famous people, to recruit some more.

“The thing with this video is I really had to hustle,” Charli shared in the latest episode of Glamour’sHey It’s OK podcast. “Some people I knew really well and were friends and I would just hit up until they were like, ‘OK, Charli, we’ll do this’.

“Some people were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it’. Then I had to actually join a really embarrassing celebrity dating app to hit up some other people.”

The exclusive dating app, which only permits access via referral or application, with a committee considering criteria including social media reach, was founded in 2015 and has famously been used by Amy Schumer, Cara Delevingne, Kelly Osborne, and singer Joe Jonas, who appears in the video.

To make the task of nabbing some of her stars easier, Charli, who directed the video herself, shot scenes at a makeshift studio at the Coachella music festival, as well as in LA and London. And in an interview with Metro, she explained she wanted to break the usual gender stereotypes seen on screen.

“I wanted them to be doing the sexy stuff in a pop video for a change rather than the girls,” she grinned to Metro. “I mentioned the idea of reverting the male gaze to all the guys and they were super down for it.”